'No wholesale changes' for Blues

Birmingham City manager Gary Rowett says he won't be making big changes to the team on Saturday when they meet local rivals West Brom in the FA Cup.

BBCCopyright: BBC

The clubs will meet at St Andrew's in the fourth round.

Rowett, who has been speaking to the press prior to the game, says Lloyd Dyer is an "excellent addition" and the club "had to compete with a number of good sized Championship clubs" for him.

14:16

Library cuts criticised

Birmingham Mail

Birmingham's great industrial and scientific pioneers would be 'turning in their graves' if they saw the Library of Birmingham facing drastic cuts just 18 months after opening to global acclaim, says the city's prestigious Lunar Society.

BBCCopyright: BBC

Group chairman Waheed Saleem has called on Birmingham City Council to abandon plans to cut £1.5 million from the Library's budget, cut 100 jobs and slash the opening hours by almost half.

13:57

News on the hour

Jo Tidman

Journalist, BBC WM

Levels of violence and sexual offences recorded by the police in the West Midlands have increased substantially, figures show.

Nine per cent more crimes of violence and 17% more sexual offences in the year to the end of September were recorded than in the previous 12 months.

PC Vaughan Lowe, 43, had been responding to reports of a stolen vehicle at the time of the crash. He could still be disciplined, according to the police watchdog, because he faces accusations of gross misconduct over the standard of his driving.

Armed officers make arrest

Pictures taken by a retired cop show plainclothes police wrestling a man to the ground and one officer then points a gun at the suspect.

10:33

comments

Caught in the act

The West Midlands-based Central Motorway policing group tweeted this image of a van whose driver was spotted on his mobile while driving alongside a truck warning motorists not to use their phones at the wheel.

CPMGCopyright: CPMG

They wrote: "Van driver using his phone on motorway... If only he'd seen the irony of the HGV next to him! Driver reported #irony"

10:20

Death crash PC's suspension reviewed

Steve Hermon

Journalist, BBC WM

A suspension given to a policeman whose unmarked car hit and killed a pedestrian while responding to an emergency call will be reviewed after he was cleared of causing death by dangerous driving.

PC Vaughn Lowe had his lights and sirens on when 24-year-old Xan Wei Zhang stepped in to Newtown Row in Birmingham in April 2012.

The 43-year-old officer was suspended before the trial back in November 2013.

Championship leaders Bournemouth have reportedly had two bids turned down for the 18-year-old, who has scored four times in 22 appearances this season, while a number of Premier League clubs have also been linked.

09:58

News on the hour

Steve Hermon

Journalist, BBC WM

Parents are calling for a fresh investigation over claims children were locked in a cupboard for misbehaving at a Wolverhampton school.